U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Tuesday held a rushed press event to announce his new legislation to ban abortion nationwide at the 15-week mark, just one month after declaring he believes abortion should be left up to the states, as the U.S. Supreme Court decided.
Graham’s 27-page long bill is falsely named the “Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act,” despite banning almost all abortion at 15 weeks. The exceptions are few and narrow: to save the life of the mother under certain but not all circumstances; after rape “against an adult woman” if “she has obtained counseling for rape,” or if the pregnancy is the “result of rape against a minor or incest against a minor” and only after that rape or incest has been reported.
A fetus is not a child, yet the legislation repeatedly makes that false claim, one that could be used later to enact so-called “personhood” bills mandating the “life begins at conception” claim that equates cells to a human being, and affords those cells all the rights and protections of a born human being.
Graham’s bill uses the claim “unborn child” 41 times and “child” 53 times. It also makes claims that are not agreed upon by the medical community, including about when a fetus can feel pain. The commonly accepted mark is around 24 weeks.
Graham’s move to introduce a bill he knows Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will not allow to receive a vote on the floor comes just weeks after he declared abortion should be a states’ rights issue.
Just 37 days ago Graham said, “states should decide the issue of abortion.”
Just past noon on Tuesday Graham announced, as The Recount shows in a video they just posted, “I think we should have, at the federal level, [a law] that would say after 15 weeks, no abortion on demand.”
(Graham’s bill actually bans abortion at 15 weeks, not after 15 weeks.)
“It’s official,” Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA) responded. “Republicans want a national abortion ban. It was never about state rights. It’s about controlling women and mandating pregnancies.”
Watch below or at this link.